WEBVTT - Interview Only w/ Mark Lanier & Rahul Ravipudi - Winning A Landmark Case Against Big Tech 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.040 This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:04.440 by Ethos and what Ethos does is it helps you 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:06.880 find life insurance. Let me tell you why life insurance 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.360 bailed me out. My father died when I was sixteen. 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.680 We didn't have a lot of money when it happened, 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.640 and we were in a pretty tough financial spot after 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.520 it happened. I'm an only child. Suddenly my mother's single, 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.360 single mother. She had a job, suddenly lost a job, 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.799 looking for another job, and we were struggling. You know, 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.720 my dad didn't leave us in the best financial situation, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.080 but he did make one purchase. 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Application times may 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:49.560 vary and rates may vary. So in March, and as 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.040 I talked about at the time, we got two what 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.280 could be landmark verdicts the big tech companies. One was 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:00.600 in New Mexico and another was in law Los Angeles. 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.080 And the one in Los Angeles got a lot of 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.240 attention because this was the first one that talked about 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.720 that where the where the where the lawsuit was about 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:16.760 the product themselves, not the content on social media platforms, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.399 but the actual social media platform itself. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:21.560 So there was no. 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.280 Hiding behind Section two thirty, which is essentially all about 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.600 you know, having no liability. 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:29.880 For what's published on their platforms. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.800 But this was a lawsuit where Meta loss because a 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:40.519 jury found them essentially guilty of creating an addictive platform. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.760 And many people have described this really as the big 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.120 Tobacco moment for social media. This will be the first 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.440 of many. This is this is a was considered a 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:56.359 Bellweather case officially. So what this means is that this, 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.079 along with about seven or eight other cases, once they're 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:03.160 all decided, they will be used to help decide thousands 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.760 of other lawsuits that are potentially brought against, whether it's Meta, snap, TikTok, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.240 you name it there. I'm sure I've butchered some of this, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.079 But to get into some more details on this, I've 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.600 got the two lead attorneys from that ground baking decision 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:24.600 in Los Angeles, Mark Lanier and Rahul Rapaputi are joining 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.000 me now to just talk about the cases, talk about 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:31.160 the cases are going to be trying in the next 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.080 few months, maybe years, and find out how long is 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:33.720 this going to take? 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.000 Right? If you go back into the world of. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:40.160 Big tobacco, these are lawsuits that started in the eighties. 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.360 I guess the first one maybe even started before that, 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.200 but we really didn't get the big settlement and the 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.320 big regulation that came to be when government finally responded 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.280 until the nineties. This stuff takes years, possibly decades. And 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.320 so with that, let me bring up my guests, Rahul Mark, 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:56.000 good to see you. 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.280 Good to see you too, Chuck, and I'll light Mark 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.560 to this off because Mark was lead trial counsel on 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:04.560 this and Ud. 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:04.720 You're on the next one. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well Mark, go ahead. 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:10.280 And look you heard my little mini intro there. 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:11.960 I just was trying to trying to set the table 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.960 a little bit, and I guess the question is, you know, look, 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.960 I've got my own you know, I uh, you know. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.200 Sometimes, you know, why do we have civil litigation? 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.200 Because government can't always tackle everything, and sometimes government needs 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.560 help identifying things they should be regulating. And this is 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.800 where I think civil litigation comes in. And this is 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.279 a we've all been demanding some better accountability on big tech, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.640 and sometimes you don't get it from government, you get 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:40.400 it from lawsuits. 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:42.800 Yeah, and I got to tell you, you do not 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:48.680 fight the gargantchewan that is Meta and Google without a 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.960 substantial army. And so Raoul, it's nice to call me 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:57.599 lead counsel. That that's that's a misnomer. That's maybe court language. 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.120 But the bottom line is is Raoul has been chasing 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.400 this forever. In a day, he let me do some 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.760 of the more fun stuff while he kind of helped 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.320 tell me how to do it. We had other lawyers there, 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.080 two of my daughters. We had probably thirty or forty 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.600 people in this fight. Because this, I think is one 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.160 of the most important cases that America will see for 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.279 the first fifty years of the twenty twenties or the 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.919 two thousands that we're in. This is the tip of 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:35.120 a spear. And Raoul can say it better than me 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.400 because he's been in it much longer than I have. 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.560 But it was a brutal war we were in. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.360 Chuck, let me describe this one case because I'll tell 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.320 you why I have connected with it so much. My 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.040 daughter's twenty two, and in this case of yours, Kayley, 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.080 who is with It's all the name that is going 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.640 to be referred to as she's twenty, and I just 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.720 want to outline some things here because I'm going to 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.040 be out us with you on the other side of 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.039 outlining it. So Kaylee begins using YouTube at age six, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.280 begins using Instagram at age nine. She had two hundred 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.000 and eighty four videos on YouTube that she had posted before. 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.360 By the end of her time in elementary school, I 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:17.320 assume that's fifth grade being designed here. She testified that 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.960 she stopped engaging with family. She began suffering anxiety and 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.000 depression at approximately age ten, was later clinically diagnosed for 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.719 both developed body dysmorphia. She attributed constant exposure to beauty 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:33.800 filters and social comparisons on Instagram. Reported suicidal tendencies as 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.960 her struggles deepened. Look, all all of us had had 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.039 parents of young girls the sort of height of the Instagram, 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.480 the initial Instagram boom and snap, and I'd watch it 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.880 with my own daughter, and look, we would intervene every 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.080 once in a while, get more involved, make sure she 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.280 was distracted, and all these things. So I've looked at 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.800 this because I lived this right. I didn't live I 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.640 thankfully didn't have a job this addicted in either sense, 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:01.719 But I live this because you know where I'm going 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:03.800 to go here next mark, which is this debate about? 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:09.039 And I'm sure Meta in their pushback, said, hey, you 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.080 know there should have been more parental involvement here, So 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.640 let me start there. I just described what it was. 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.120 How did you push back on the idea that this 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:24.720 was parental challenges not about Meta and Google. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.080 I've decided there's not a parent on the planet who 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:33.080 has the wherewithal to stand up against these algorithms in 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:42.000 these powerful social media addiction platforms. There's just not. So 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.080 you take her mother for example, her mother would not 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.679 let her download Instagram on her phone, but Katie figured 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.240 out a way to do it anyway. Because all of 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.640 her classmates were on it, she wanted to fit in. 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.080 Her mother put time limits on her phone, but Kaylee 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.280 figured out a way around it locked her phone up 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.360 in the kitchen at night. But Kaylee would wait for 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.160 her mother to go to sleep and she would go 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.440 get the phone and she would get back on it. 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:14.560 There's not a parent in the world that can handle 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:19.200 and do this right. And the sad part is Meta 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.840 not only knew that, but they took advantage of it 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:27.440 because Meta did this study that showed that especially children 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.840 who come from homes that are broken, where the money's 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.600 not there, where the resources aren't there, where. 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.199 The mayor's one parent, not two. 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.040 Single parent trying to work a job and raise three kids, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:45.800 which was Kaylee's situation. The company Meta knew they were 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.600 more prone and likely to get addicted and to get 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:50.280 hurt by it. 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.040 The other thing about it, though, to add to what 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:58.680 Mark said, is when you're dealing with addiction and addiction 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:03.240 and children, it is an irreparable harm. And so there's 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.800 a rewiring of the brain that happens, and it happens 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.880 so much faster and with so much potency in a 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:16.079 child's brain than an adult's brain. And the internal research 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.200 that Meta did, they did studies and they found, hey, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.600 once a kid's addicted, if a parent gets involved and 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.800 tries to intervene, it actually leads to more social media 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.160 use for that child. So there's no safety measures that 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.679 can be done once the child's addicted. There's no intervention 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.559 by the parents that can be done. The damage is 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.760 already done and it's too late. And that's that's some 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.280 of the stuff that lights were shined on the internal 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:52.000 documents in these cases to show what's really going on inside. 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.760 Let's talk about those, because I mean these internal meta 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.679 documents to me are this is the I mean, this 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.000 had this was the gold as far as you're concerned, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.760 be able to like, hey, don't trust our experts on this. 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:06.240 This is not like a case where you had to 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.760 get your own expert witnesses in your own expert analysis. 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.520 You just had to say, hey, here's what you did. 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.800 Is this from all those leaks over the last few 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.640 years or was this due to discovery that you were 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.120 able to force them to show this stuff. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:28.480 This was discovery. The leaks helped us conduct more discovery, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.000 got it to kind of pinpoints some issues. But all 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:37.280 of this was through countless, countless documents. And this was 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.079 a true in the technology era. You talk about finding 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.199 needles and haystacks, exponential on that. 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.559 So this is like finding out the tobacco companies found out, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.880 you know, did studies noting that nicotine was addicted. 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.559 Exactly, except it's not just one study, it's dozens of studies. 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.760 It's hundreds of studies. And so when you talk about 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.520 the number of smoking that exist in this case against 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:07.440 meta YouTube, TikTok and snap, it's unbelievable. And what it 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:12.640 really showed was that these companies, without any guardrails, it's 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.559 a race to the bottom. Whatever it is they can 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:20.680 do to maximize the attention economy and take the largest 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.040 market share. If a competitor is doing something that's harmful 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.240 to kids, they'll do it, and they'll do it with 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.560 more potency just so that they can maximize their market share. 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:36.320 Uck kids, If I can see Raoul said, he said 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:42.040 the smoking guns. He's making a really astute pun there, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:48.760 because these companies actually did have smoking guns in this sense. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.120 The company said, you know, we're saying publicly there's no addiction. 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.440 We're saying publicly there's no problem. We're saying publicly there's 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:02.560 no harm, just like tobacco did, when internally our studies 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:06.480 show that there are. And then these documents say, one 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.480 day people are going to see this and they're going 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:14.280 to know we are big tobacco, we are the tobacco companies. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:20.400 So they are truly smoking guns that we found. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.280 You had some leaks to you know, was there how 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.679 many times did you have to go back at meta 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.920 to say no, I think you have this surface this. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.719 I mean, how did you have to pull it out 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.640 of them. Did they eventually just sort of like realize 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.680 that it's all going to leak if and it's worse 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.440 if it looks like they're hiding or what was your sense? 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:46.760 Well, everything's under probably the most onerous protective order. And 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.600 so these hundreds and thousands of documents that we have, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.360 we've only been able to scratch the surface of showing 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.680 them in trials because of the limited time we have 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.560 for trial presentation. So there's so many more that are 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.800 going to see the light in these next sets of 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:09.320 Bellweather trials, which hopefully will have a large impact on 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.640 how people act and how these social media companies act. 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:20.720 The whistleblowers are so unbelievably important because what ends up 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.480 happening is documents say one thing, and they're crystal clear 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.079 on what they say. Witnesses come in, they try their 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.960 best to whitewash it. But when you have a former 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:37.480 company employee, a high level person, somebody like Arturo Behar, 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:43.120 who was the probably the most knowledgeable safety expert within 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.400 Meta or within the tech industry as a whole, coming 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.679 out and calling out all of the internal practices and 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:56.480 really the mindset at Meta of profits at the expense 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:01.120 of child safety's that's something that has real impact. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:03.760 You know, it's interesting. 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:10.240 I think the hardest thing to prove is addiction, especially 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.920 if it's not an addiction that we're okay, a drug 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.199 addiction or an alcoholic alcohol addiction. 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:19.120 We kind of get that, and. 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:24.920 We're sort of we're sort of accepting the premise that 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.840 gambling can create an addiction, and we're going to have 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.280 that that that debate is starting, and I think, you know, 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.080 the question is going to be same thing, right, there's 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:39.040 predatory tactics that the that the these sports gaming mobile 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:43.120 things are using, et cetera. What is the definition of 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.320 addiction you guys used in this trial. 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.720 Well, we put on the stand the doctor that I 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:56.360 considered the greatest expert in the land on addiction. She 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.120 heads up the clinic. The section on addiction at Stanford 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:05.120 Medical School names doctor Anna Limkey. She wrote Dopamine Nation 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.960 bestseller Addiction, and she uses what she called the four seas. 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:15.320 But what it really boils down to is this is 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:21.440 someone compulsively using something where they cannot stop using it, 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:26.800 even when it's to the detriment of their health or 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:31.120 their relationships. You've got to have those elements in some 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:37.560 way that you define them. Someone cannot stop using something 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:43.280 even when it's destroying them their health or their relationships, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:45.000 and that's an addiction. 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:50.000 What could you feel like you could point to mask this, 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.320 were you able to prove that they actually Instagram at 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.840 times made things more addictive, not less addictive. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.640 Aout a doubt, without a doubt. And Raoul may have 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.360 better insight on this than me. But the things that 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.640 I thought really stuck out to the jurors, or the 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:14.760 fact that they developed these features like endless scroll, and 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:16.960 they have features here in the US that they don't 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:22.000 have overseas, so they'll ignore the age of the user. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.400 They will sometimes not even ask for the age. YouTube 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.640 you can get on YouTube Maine and never be asked 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.400 what your age is. You can do those shorts until 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.640 you've gone through them all, which we showed would take 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.800 something on the order of three hundred and sixty eight 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.120 years of twenty four hours a day, and still you 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.239 wouldn't get through it all because they're adding millions a day. 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.960 So they put an endless scroll, they put auto play 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.560 where it plays automatically. They put a finger swipe because 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.640 it's like a slot machine where you do something physical 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.160 and you get a change. You slot machine science. They 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:08.080 sculpted the algorithm to trap you to be sticky. They 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:13.359 set any of the features that might stop addiction into 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.480 a mode where no one can access them reasonably. 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:19.080 So you need an example of it. 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.720 Okay, so you've got a chance to turn off an 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.640 endless scroll feature or where after thirty minutes, it'll say 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.600 you've been doing this thirty minutes, they're you sure you 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.720 want to do it? Nobody even knows that feature exists. 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.359 You've got to go navigate all of this stuff to 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.840 even find it because they don't want you to put 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.040 it into place. Remember, they only make money the longer 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.120 time you spend on it. The more time you spend, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.560 the more money they make. So they want you. They're 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:58.240 an early YouTube document said, quote, our goal is not viewership, 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:01.600 it's a addiction close quote. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.000 To think about this, Chuck, And what Mark said is 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.600 so on point, because why do you have to search 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.040 for a safety feature and why do you have to 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.840 search hard for it? And this was a I think 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.440 a pivotal moment in the trial. Mark asked a witness, 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.320 can we just get real for a second, when is 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:28.679 an addict going to look for a safety feature so 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.760 that they can use the product less. So they get you, 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.840 they get these kids addicted, and then they put this 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:41.119 you know, safety feature out there that's unfindable that say, look, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.600 we're a safe company, and it really kind of shined 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.920 a light on who these folks are. But going back 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.879 to some of the things and the proof, let me 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:55.480 just read from you a document from Meta's well being department, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:59.879 which doesn't exist anymore. Product features that are designed to 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:07.440 exploit insecurity or provide a dopamine rush, likes notifications, the 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:12.680 pull down to see the infinite scroll, etc. To increase 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:17.919 time spent are inherently at odds with well being and 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.800 take away from people's ability to consciously focus on activities 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:27.120 that add value to their lives. That's their internal document 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.439 talking about all of these design features, and they describe 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.199 them in two different ways. They call them addictive like 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:40.359 designs and dark patterns. Dark patterns are those things that 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.160 just manipulate you into doing something you don't even want 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:43.399 to do. 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:45.920 Like if a kid is. 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.560 Steps off of Meta and Instagram for a bit it's nighttime, 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.800 and then all of a sudden, their phone lights up 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.199 and with a notification that's meaningless. Hey, somebody wants to 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.280 be your friend. Why do you need that notification at 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:04.560 one in the morning. Well, once that notification comes, a 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.280 user then goes back onto the app and then they 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.240 start using it more for Instead of like ten seconds, 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.439 now they're thirty minutes to an hour and the sleep 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.040 deprivation comes. So an internal document that was used in 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:21.879 the trial showed a ven diagram and the dark patterns 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:27.760 and the addictive like designs include AutoPlay, end listen roll 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:32.119 and all of these notifications. These are their documents talking 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:32.600 about it. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.000 This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.320 by Soul. So if you love that end of the 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.920 day unwined but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.960 is for you. These sparkling THHC drinks and gummies give 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.399 you the same relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.320 the calories, and without the crash. 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Right now, 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.440 Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order. 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.639 Go to get sol dot com and use the word 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.800 podcast that's get sold dot com promo code podcast for 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:13.000 thirty percent off. And yes, I too, am a customer. Well, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.480 I was at a neighbor party stand. 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.119 Outdoor, but it's crawfish boiled. And my neighbor flows all 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:19.480 the time. 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.160 And I was talking to his father in law, who's 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:25.680 I've become friendly with over the years, and he said, 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.160 you know, I got to stop watching YouTube at night. 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.560 He goes, I end up, and this is he's in 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.119 his late seventies, early eighties, and he's he goes, all 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:38.399 of a sudden, I'll like about nine thirty, start using YouTube. 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:40.000 I look up and it's one in the morning, and 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.719 he goes and suddenly I'm like, not getting enough sleep. 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:45.040 And he goes and I don't feel right. And this 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.679 is somebody in there, right, and he's self aware, and 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.400 yet he said he can't bring himself to turn it off. 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.840 And like I said, fully formed human being here. 0:22:56.040 --> 0:23:01.040 So, Chuck, that is such a great example because we 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:05.880 had on the stand a fellow named Kristos Goudrow, who 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.720 is one of the principal architects behind that algorithm for 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:15.040 YouTube that sucks people in like this. And if it's 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.600 an adult, it's an adult. But when children who don't 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:24.040 have their brain fully developed to understand consequences get onto this, 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:28.000 it's even worse because those children who get robbed of 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:34.200 sleep now have deficient school performance, they don't learn. As 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:40.600 Raoul has said, it totally changes their life trajectory. It 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.320 rewires their brain. Now here's the sad part. Christus Gudrow, 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:51.040 who authored that algorithm in a sense, was asked, can't 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:53.760 we change some of this for kids? We can get 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:57.959 an extra nine thousand hours of sleep for kids just 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:03.240 in California alone if we would just make this little alteration. 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:07.440 And his answer was, Nah, we're not going to do that. 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:09.640 We're not going to do that. I mean, he's faced 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:14.639 with vulnerable children can get nine thousand hours more sleep 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:19.000 if you'll make this small tweak and he refuses to 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:19.360 do it. 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:23.480 And then just on the mindset of christ Scudrou in particular, 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:28.880 he was quoted as saying, it would be great if 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:32.560 my kids were on YouTube five to seven hours a day. 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:36.480